Code division multiple access (CDMA) modulation is commonly used in cellular telephone networks and other wireless communication systems. For example, CDMA is used in the Wideband CDMA air interface developed by the 3rd Generation Project Partnership (3GPP), as well as other emerging communication standards; and the term “CDMA,” as used in the context of the present patent application, is intended to encompass all communication schemes that use this type of modulation. CDMA transmitters modulate data streams that are to be transmitted over the air using pseudo-random bit sequences, which are known as spreading codes. Each bit in the spreading code is commonly referred to as a “chip,” and the bit rate of the spreading code (which is typically much larger than the symbol rate of the transmitted data) is known as the chip rate.
Each user has a unique spreading code. Thus, multiple CDMA signals, using different spreading codes, can be transmitted simultaneously in the same spectral band. The receiver demodulates the received data signal by correlating the signal with the same spreading code that was used in transmission, in an operation that is known as despreading. Under ideal transmission conditions, the despreading operation will perfectly separate the desired data stream from all of the other CDMA signals in the spectral band. In practice, however, multi-path transmission channels and noise lead to loss of orthogonality between the signals (meaning that different CDMA signals may interfere with one another), which may, if uncorrected, result in errors in decoding the received data.
The description above is presented as a general overview of related art in this field and should not be construed as an admission that any of the information it contains constitutes prior art against the present patent application.